Tuesday, 9 June 2015

1984: V: THE CONCLUSION/ THE FINAL BATTLE in STARLOG MAGAZINE

From June 1984: STARLOG MAGAZINE issue 83 goes behind-the-scenes on the second "V" mini-series.

At the time of going to press, it was clearly still being produced under Ken Johnson's original title of "V: THE CONCLUSION". When it actually aired on NBC in May it had been rebadged V: THE FINAL BATTLE.

The dating discrepancy is no doubt down to the magazine, like comics, having a cover date some months after the actual on-sale date. Factor in the mag's production time, and TV's propensity to change things at the last possible moment, and voila: plenty of time to substitute the more exciting, but no more accurate, new name.

There's lot of juicy background information although Johnson's contribution and departure is played down, perhaps at the request of the network's PR people. It's also surprisingly candid about the haphazard production process and the need to strip out expensive and time consuming optical work in order to pull down the budget and hit the desired airdate. That explains why, despite the copious amount of lasers blasted about, the final (ahem) push to drive the Visitors from Earth is surprisingly lacking in heavy hardware.

Despite all those problems... and the prospect of bringing in a show with mini-series production values on a weekly schedule... they still pushed ahead with a weekly iteration.

SLOW ROBOT

Welcome to STARLOGGED!
It's a repository, and celebration, of Geek Media (mostly print) from the 'Star Age': that pre-millennial period between, roughly, 1972 (the opening of Marvel UK) and 1999 (the release of The Phantom Menace... and the end of innocence). But, of course, we'll bend the rules when we want to.
I only reproduce long out-of-print items for historical reference. I don't include anything that's currently in-print, is likely to be reprinted or otherwise commercially exploited by the copyright holder.
Comments and contributions are most welcome.